Just Love Him
by Loveedith
Summary: Mrs. Pelham's words to Edith on the stairs after the wedding. The OC is of course Mrs. P
1. The Baby

Little Herbert was Patricia Pelham's first living child. Or rather - her only living child.

She had had a stillborn daughter before that, as well as three late miscarriages. She and her husband had almost given up hope of children when little Herbert arrived.

...

Herbert was a very small baby. He was born almost two months too early and only weighed a little more than five pounds. "I'm certain the baby will live", the doctor said, but that was what made Patricia unable to believe he would. Why would the doctor say a thing like that if there was no danger?

No, Patricia didn't dare to believe the doctor. She was certain that they were going to lose little Herbert, just like they had lost all their other children.

She didn't think she would ever be allowed to see her son grow up. Perhaps it made her cooler to her baby son than she would otherwise have been. It took her almost a year to really understand that Bertie was actually going to stay with them.

...

Bertie was a child who didn't give up easily. He was very stubborn when he wanted something. But he was also very friendly. It was hard to say no to a child that just asked in a polite and friendly way, time and time again until his smiles and persistence had managed to overcome all resistance.

Patricia's husband thought she spoilt their son. And perhaps she did. "Spare the rod and spoil the child", they say. And Patricia had never ever hit her child, not with her hand, still less with a rod.

He was too precious to her. And she didn't want to hurt him.

...

Who could blame her for wanting the best for her son? Patricia thought.

But of course she knew who blamed her - Bertie himself did. He didn't blame her for wanting the best for him, he blamed her for thinking she knew better than him what _was_ best for him.

That was what it all came down to, of course.

Edith.

How could an unmarried mother, a woman with a scandal that could be exposed to the world any moment, be the best for Bertie?

* * *

AN:Thank you for reading! Please let me know what you think!


	2. The Soldier

The war had been terrible for Mrs Pelham.

Well, it had probably been terrible for everybody. At least for every mother of an officier or a soldier.

...

Patricia Pelham had been so proud of Bertie when he was accepted to Sandhurst.

She could wonder about that later - there wasn't a war going on then, but of course she knew there would be one sooner or later. She wished many times that he had chosen some other path in life.

...

When the war broke out, Bertie's mother wanted to tell Bertie not to enlist.

She spoke to her husband about it a few days after the war had started. It made her husband furious. He told her that Bertie was an officier by profession, he had to go to war whether he liked it or not. He was forced to go where they sent him, or else he risked being shot as a deserter.

"Don't take his courage away", her husband had said. "Don't cry too much when you say good-bye to him. It will only make things worse for him."

...

So, when Bertie came home to his parents a month later, for the last time before he was sent to France, his mother's eyes were dry. He found her a bit hardhearted, after all it was perhaps the last time they would ever see each other, but she didn't utter a single word of fear, she just hugged him and said good-bye and let him go.

She cried for two days after Bertie left, but she never told him about that.

...

It really wasn't the last time she saw him, of course. He kept coming back, for a few days or a week's leave, all through the war. But he never saw his mother cry for him.

Every time she was cheerful while he was at home.

And every time she cried for days after he had left. She was so certain that she would lose him.

...

But the war was finally over, and Bertie was still alive. He was never even hurt in the war.

And his mother was certain that it was her tears rather than her self-control that had saved him.

* * *

AN: Thank you for reading! Many thanks for the lovely reviews to last chapter!

...

I lost some thirty drafts to stories here, because I was away for almost the 90 days that documents are kept. Most of them, perhaps fifteen to twenty, were for The Tangled Web of Life, but I lost chapters and drafts for several other stories as well, some old and some new. This story is one of them, so this chapter is all new.


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